The differentiation between Crohn's disease and lupus enteritis is difficult because both the two diseases can show similar clinical signs and symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, intestinal obstruction and so on. In addition, it is known that coexistence of SLE and Crohn's disease is very rare.
Rheumatoid arthritis
Some symptoms of RA are similar to those of lupus, including fatigue, fever, rashes, and dry eyes. “Rheumatoid arthritis and lupus affect the same distribution of joints, the small joints in the hands and wrists, for example,” says Dr. Petri.
Like Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis involves inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. In this condition, however, only the lining of the large intestine, or colon, is affected. Ulcerative colitis causes multiple ulcers to form on the intestinal wall.
Behcet's disease may classically mimic Crohn's disease (CD) with oral and genital ulcerating lesions, with a small percentage of patients presenting with luminal disease, plus additional manifestations that may appear like extraintestinal manifestations.
While it's not common, people with Crohn's are more likely than others to develop rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and multiple sclerosis, which are all autoimmune diseases.
Your doctor will look for rashes and other signs that something is wrong. Blood and urine tests. The antinuclear antibody (ANA) test can show if your immune system is more likely to make the autoantibodies of lupus. Most people with lupus test positive for ANA.
Diagnosing lupus is difficult because signs and symptoms vary considerably from person to person. Signs and symptoms of lupus may change over time and overlap with those of many other disorders. No one test can diagnose lupus.
The most distinctive sign of lupus — a facial rash that resembles the wings of a butterfly unfolding across both cheeks — occurs in many but not all cases of lupus.
Intestinal endoscopy. Intestinal endoscopies are the most accurate methods for diagnosing Crohn's disease and ruling out other possible conditions, such as ulcerative colitis, diverticular disease, or cancer. Intestinal endoscopies include the following: Colonoscopy.
DB Silent disease is disease that does not have the overt symptoms that make a patient feel poorly. This is a fairly well-established concept in medicine. Perhaps the best example of a correlate to silent Crohn's disease is silent ischemia in the context of heart disease.
With such a wide possible area Crohn's can affect, it's difficult for doctors to diagnose it correctly. In a recent survey of people with inflammatory bowel disease, one in ten Crohn's patients said they were misdiagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Also, there's not just one test to diagnose the condition.
About 46 percent of lupus patients are misdiagnosed in the first years of their illness. More than half of all lupus patients are told by doctors that they aren't actually sick and that they're imagining their symptoms.
Some common autoimmune diseases, including Type 1 diabetes mellitus, are relatively easy to diagnose, while others, such as vasculitis, Addison's disease, lupus, and other rheumatic diseases, are more difficult. Additionally, many of the 100-plus autoimmune diseases are uncommon or rare.
Antinuclear antibody (ANA) autoantibodies, or antibodies produced by the immune system that attack the body's own cells, are a hallmark of lupus. ANA is usually measured as 0 to 4+ or as a titer (the number of times a blood sample can be diluted and still be positive).
Lupus symptoms can also be unclear, can come and go, and can change. On average, it takes nearly six years for people with lupus to be diagnosed, from the time they first notice their lupus symptoms.
Common symptoms include fatigue, hair loss, sun sensitivity, painful and swollen joints, unexplained fever, skin rashes, and kidney problems. There is no one test for SLE. Usually, your doctor will ask you about your family and personal medical history and your symptoms. Your doctor will also do some laboratory tests.
For some people, living with and managing lupus can cause weight gain. Weight gain may also lead to worsening lupus symptoms and complications associated with obesity. Some potential causes of weight gain that relate to lupus may include: being a side effect of medications such as corticosteroids.
Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Ulcerative colitis and microscopic colitis are other common types of IBD. Crohn's disease most often begins gradually and can become worse over time. You may have periods of remission that can last for weeks or years.
The pain that Crohn's patients feel tends to be crampy. It often appears in the lower right abdomen but can happen anywhere along the digestive tract. “It depends on where that inflammatory process is happening,” says Nana Bernasko, DNP, gastroenterology expert with the American Gastroenterological Association.
Official answer. Although ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease are both long-term, inflammatory conditions that affect the digestive tract, ulcerative colitis (UC) may be considered “worse” because surgery may be required earlier and, in certain circumstances, more urgently, in people with severe and extensive UC.